Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized • Hacker News Board

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#281

Post by jablongo » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #278

jablongo wrote: post #273

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

“Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world.” Strongly disagree. If that was all he experienced in his life, the brain would not host a mind we would recognize as a healthy human. A human is not a computer. A human life is not decomposable to purely language. This is not a…

Are simulated experiences not experiences? What if they are indistinguishable from the real thing? Also see my response below - the claim is not that this guy locked in a room will surely be well adjusted and normal, just that it’s possible (though maybe not probable) for him to acquire intelligence.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#282

Post by yalok » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:56 AM UTC

Irrespective of the main topic, this citation rings a good warning:

“Jerone Lanier has argued that the belief in scientific immortality, the development of computers with super-intelligence, etc., are expressions of a new religion, “expressed through an engineering culture” (Lanier, 2013, p. 186).”

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#283

Post by rutherblood » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:57 AM UTC

Whatever the criticisms of this paper may be, I get where it and Dreyfus is getting at. Even Hofstader had a lot to say about this but the guy was ignored to hell after his first book itself, I guess he has lost faith in the entire enterprise.

One problem with computer scientists and AI researchers is the level of arrogance that they display about their state of knowledge.

It would have had been good for us to rather engage with the larger body of philosophical work (which has a long tradition of thinking about how the mind works, how meaning and cognition emerge, how such embodied cognition interacts with the world) and then conduct empirical research trying to verify a philosophical paradigm rather than just going at it blindly by sometimes assuming mind can be reduced to logical systems and sometimes trying to simulate a reductionist and incomplete model of neural networks.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#284

Post by proc0 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #129

Embodiment being a killer feature for AGI seems weird to me. Not only is "what is a body" vague, but it is entirely possible to build a body. So why would it prevent AGI? We do know that embodiment is a sufficient condition for general intelligence: if we assume humans have general intelligence then it is clearly a sufficient condition. But the question of necessary is more interesting because we have to actually ask…

I think if not necessary it's probably the fastest way to AGI, given that AGI includes "common sense" in order to interact with other humans, ala Turing Test.

In order for a machine to have this "human interface", we will have to share the same environments in which we learn, and simulating the real world is more expensive than building a robot with some kind of software AI that together simulate a human. In other words, it's easier to actually use the world instead of simulating it (at least to the same degree of detail, so at least it becomes increasingly cheaper).

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#285

Post by proc0 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:01 AM UTC

sasaf5 wrote: post #216

I came to this article expecting a logical proof of why AI was impossible, but instead found the following tautological argument: hard AI, which I define as intelligence with tacit knowledge, which in turn I define as knowledge that cannot be ran in algorithms, is impossible to be ran in algorithms. Disappointing. My counterpoint: is there anything that cannot be ran in algorithms? The way I see it the only thing sto…

I think the neighboring thread nailed it. Tacit knowledge boils down to Cartesian dualism, and like the article claims there is something special and unreachable by computation. I agree this is not the case, everything points to our brains being information processing organs.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#286

Post by throw093234 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:01 AM UTC

jablongo wrote: post #273

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

It is moving goal post; "Turing test", "The real Touring test", "the super real real Turing test"..... At end there will be a test for presence of "soul" :)

Number of false negatives must be sky-high :)

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#287

Post by proc0 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:03 AM UTC

tlb wrote: post #218

If you accept Dreyfuss’ argument that a computer can’t acquire some kinds of knowledge without a body, there’s a fairly obvious workaround. Give it a robot body. And in fact, many research projects are doing this. The Dreyfussians may retreat to their motte and say, well, a robot body can’t give it the experience of walking barefoot through the grass so it can’t be fully general because there’s something people know…

Yes, Boston Dynamics and DeepMind should start collaborating.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#288

Post by throw093234 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:04 AM UTC

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #280

jablongo wrote: post #273

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

> Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world. Without fully experiencing the outside world, such an agent will still have gaps in intelligence. Knowing the specific wavelength of the color red (564–580 nm), and how the optic nerve processes color is different than the expe…

Can Eskimos be intelligent?

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#289

Post by proc0 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

lurquer wrote: post #39

vidarh wrote: post #21

Any article making such a claim need to start with explaining what evidence they have that human brains are not computing devices that can be replicated or simulated. Because absent evidence that there is something fundamental preventing us from one day copying the structure of a human brain and ending up with a working device, whatever claims they make are hand-waving.

>Any article making such a claim need to start with explaining what evidence they have that human brains are not computing devices that can be replicated or simulated. If X and Y appear dissimilar, the burden of proof is on he who would argue they are similar. If one contends a brain and a computer and the functions of each appear similar, then one is being disingenuous.

OP should have said "counter-evidence". There is plenty of evidence the brain is basically an information processing organ. It's integrating sensory data that you can interrupt and hack (i.e. visual illusions, ghost limbs), also damaging certain parts reliably affects us in the same ways like going blind or losing motor control.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#290

Post by tialaramex » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #139

awakeasleep wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm missing a step. Is there a proof that all nature can be simulated with binary logic?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "binary logic," but there is the Church-Turing-Deutsch principle which states that a "universal computer" (essentially a working quantum computer) can simulate all physical processes. But I suspect it's not a "proof" that would satisfy skeptics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing%E2%80%93...

It's a Strong Church-Turing so you're correct that sceptics just say they don't believe this.

Actually it's not uncommon for AI "sceptics" (the sort of people who write these articles not just people who suspect we'll have another AI Winter) to just not accept Church-Turing at all, or to insist upon squinting at it in a peculiar way that renders it tautological.

I'm consistently disappointed that people who feel they're quite sure general AI isn't possible mostly have bad intuitions about Computer Science. Twice so far I've been recommended books by sceptics "which will show you why you're wrong" and been disappointed with the poor quality of argument deployed which sometimes is little more than a show of incredulity or a resort to mysterious dualism.

A more robust attempt at this sort of argument was put up by Stevan Harnad, who taught an undergraduate class I sat in on many years ago now (one of the privileges of a post-graduate is that they're entitled to attend relevant undergraduate lectures and so I did). Harnad thinks† you need to build a robot because the intelligence will need some means to experience the universe for itself. But Harnad doesn't disbelieve that general AI is in principle possible, he just thinks our present methods can't get there.

† In general with people who've made a career of such thing they are very careful with words, and so I have doubtless mis-characterized (or even misunderstood) the details and you should blame me for that not Stevan.